Bebop by the Numbers - Solfege Edition: a super fun, super simple way to learn how to improvise

What is Bebop by the Numbers? Bebop by the Numbers is a method for teaching music creation to all aspiring musicians, instrumentalists, and vocalists alike, focused on using scale degrees and repeatable building blocks and patterns to create your music. In this new edition, Kelly Eisenhour has added valuable resources for vocalists, including Solfège and scat syllable suggestions that correspond to the numbers and helpful information, especially for singers. We teach Jazz mostly, so our focus is on Bebop. But what you discover in these lessons can be found in all genres of music, not just Jazz. So Why Numbers? Numbers are very helpful. If you can think about the numbers of the scale degrees instead of the letters, you can then translate ideas to different keys more quickly. "What's the one? What's the three?" Then, the other key is the same question, just a different answer. You can't transpose very quickly from one key to the other without using numbers. Solfège works much the same way, "What’s the Do? What’s the Mi?" –and is more “singable” for the vocalists and instrumentalists who pick up this book. Singers also have some specific challenges, and the strategies described in this book–especially for them, allow more accessiblity to these ideas for vocalists. I have also done a lot of experimenting with teaching students, testing who learned faster – the students who used notes and their corresponding letters or the students who went by numbers. In my experience so far, the answer is “Numbers.” Even though using numbers may add an extra step and the students have to figure out how to play the pattern, they tend to learn more quickly, retain better, and start coming up with their own ideas sooner than those who learn note by note. My theory is that it’s necessary to make comparisons to play ideas. For example, “This is the minor third, and I’m going to the sixth, the sharp four, then five; I like that sound. Okay, let me try it with this key.” I don’t see students making those discoveries as quickly when we go note by note and ideas are written out for them. Vocalists also do much better improvising when they have a framework and are given a step by step approach to develop. Read more